Tuesday, 7 May 2013

15 Second Review: Like Minds (2006)

Sometimes form and theme marry together too
comfortably. Like Minds embodies that principle. The film’s tone is every bit as sterile as the environs - a private school and police cells - against which the action is set. The film is as hard to engage with as its characters are. The lead teens
are so precocious that the film also feels pretentious. One teen is deluded,
the other is apparently spellbound into a shared madness. It feels as if the
filmmakers have been hypnotised by their idea, but they are deluded if they
think the viewer will be seduced into a folie
a deux. Had the filmmakers pulled that off, I would have heralded Like Minds a work of cinematic genius.
Instead, the experience of watching Like
Minds is more closely paralleled by another of its character couplings. One
lead investigating officer is transfixed into denying the obvious truth of their
situation, while the other is frustrated by their partner's wilful ignorance. Appositely, the viewer is likely to be left
angered by the script-writer’s intentional delaying of its final, all-too
obvious reveal.